Dollhouse
by WynterSky
Summary: "Suna's secret weapon is...a ball-jointed doll, un?" When Deidara takes for himself a treasure he had been employed to steal, he soon finds himself on the run from almost everyone—and the treasure has a mind of its own.


[A/N: Hey guys! Remember how I was planning on starting a new story during November, but ended up updating all my in-progress stories instead? Well, as a reward for doing that and studying very very very hard for the JLPT (a big scary assessment test for Japanese skill) I am starting that story now. This is actually one of my first major stories that doesn't have any Uchihas in leading roles. Also, I might change the title later but I can't think of anything better right now.]

Chapter 1:

Deidara coughed, waving away smoke as he peered through the hole in the wall he had just made. The blast had been much less intense than was his usual habit, but also much smokier. Another side effect had been the cloud of sand that had enveloped him immediately after the explosion; clearly he would have to remember to stand downwind next time he had a job in Suna.

At night, Suna was surprisingly cold, and Deidara shivered a little in his thin tunic and short trousers as he boosted himself through the hole. Once inside the darkened building, he looked around nervously, half expecting guards to be there already even though the explosion had been, for him anyway, very quiet and discreet. There was no-one in sight, however, so he made his way further into the Suna weapons vault, examining the stacks of crates plastered with foreboding warning labels in search of what he had been paid to steal.

Heists weren't really Deidara's thing; he much preferred the sort of jobs where he could set off a string of bombs and then escape before anyone had time to react. Blowing things up on the way in brought a lot more risk of being caught before he could get out.

"How am I supposed to find the stupid thing while it's so dark in here, un?" Deidara grumbled after a few minutes of fruitless looking. While it was light enough to see his way around, there wasn't enough visibility to recognize what he was aiming for, and since there still didn't seem to be any reaction from outside, Deidara decided to risk taking out a flashlight in order to see better.

"I just want to hurry up and find it so I can get out of here…"

Now that he had the flashlight, Deidara could see just how crammed the warehouse was, as well as being able to properly discern some of the labels. Suna was hoarding some nasty stuff in there; it was a lucky thing Deidara had decided to be discreet earlier. If he had been careless he could have set off the whole warehouse and himself with it. "I would have really liked being told that sooner, un. This 'need to know' stuff stinks—hey, is that it?"

Deidara had begun gesturing with the flashlight as he spoke, and the beam had by chance fallen in a far corner of the warehouse. Gilt inlays in the dark wood of a large, weathered trunk caught his eye, and he stepped closer to take a closer look.

Moving several lighter boxes piled atop it, Deidara crouched down and shone the flashlight on the lid of the chest so he could examine the engravings. The gold tracings swirled organically along the grain of the wood, sometimes forming shapes of animals or trees, and one branch swept downwards to circle around the heavy, ornate gilded lock.

"It sure looks like how they described it, un," Deidara said as he stood up and gave the handle on one end of the trunk an experimental tug. It didn't budge at all, contrary to his expectations, nor did it when he used a bit more strength, but when he strained as hard as he could with both hands he could just get it to move. "Didn't say it would be this heavy though," he grumbled through gritted teeth as he slowly dragged the trunk back towards the hole he had made.

It took far too long to move the trunk even just a few meters, and Deidara quickly realized that his initial plan of carrying it through the hole he had entered through wasn't going to work. He had already been in the warehouse longer than he had allowed time for, and the chances of his being discovered were going up by the minute.

Now that he had changed his plan, Deidara pulled the trunk back further into the warehouse where there was a bit of a larger space, so he would have room to work.

By the time he managed to haul the heavy trunk to where he wanted it, it was beginning to become disturbingly light outside, and Deidara knew he would have to work fast or the warehouse break-in would be discovered before he could make his way out. Taking out a handful of clay, he set to work and soon a large white bird was sitting in the middle of the cleared area.

"Now comes the hard part, un," Deidara said as he looked from the trunk, which was sitting solidly on the ground, and the bird's back which was about five feet up. It wasn't very far, but considering how hard it had been to move the trunk on a flat plane, moving it against gravity was going to be even more difficult.

Dragging over a ladder from another part of the warehouse, Deidara set up a makeshift pulley system with some ninja wire. It took longer than he would have liked, but the only other option would have been leaving without the trunk, and he wouldn't get paid that way.

The trunk fell twice as Deidara hauled it off the ground, making a loud enough noise that he was certain someone must have heard it. No-one came into the warehouse after him, however, and on the third try he successfully moved the trunk far enough up that he could guide the bird underneath it. Once he had lowered the trunk on, Deidara climbed on himself and released a pair of smaller clay birds that fluttered up to the roof.

_If nobody knew I was here before, they sure are now,_ Deidara thought as the two small birds exploded, blasting a neat hole in the roof large enough for the bigger bird to fly through. The bird struggled a little to take off with the weight of both Deidara and the heavy trunk, but soon made it off the ground and swept through the gap in the roof.

When Deidara looked down, he could see that he had definitely been discovered as a veritable shower of kunai and shuriken were thrown his way by the gathering guards. Deidara put out his tongue and waved scornfully down at them as he flew away, but from the look of it the trunk was getting more attention than he was.

The bird was more sluggish than usual due to the amount of weight it was carrying, but Deidara still managed to escape across the wall with no more than a few scratches from shuriken that had been better-aimed than the rest.

…

Several hours later, Deidara flew past the end of the desert of Wind Country and brought the bird down in a wooded clearing near a river. He was practically coated with sand, and wanted nothing more than a chance to wash it off. _The trunk should be fine where it is for a little while,_ he told himself. _There's no-one around for miles, and it's not like it'll walk off on its own._

The cool water of the river was a refreshing change from flying through the hot, dry Suna skies all day, and Deidara didn't realize how long he had been lounging in the water until he looked up and saw that the clouds above were turning pink.

Wringing out his wet hair, he slipped his clothes back on and headed back to where he had left the bird and the trunk, which was indeed right where he had left it.

Deidara climbed onto the bird again and continued examining the trunk, remembering the instructions his contractors had given him. "So…'don't open it,' un," he said to himself. _Well, they should have known that telling me not to do something is the best way of getting me to do it._ His current occupation was good proof of that, considering how many times he had been told as a child that pyromania was a vice.

Lockpicking was another thing he had been often told not to do, so he had of course become good enough at it that it only took a few minutes to work the trunk's lock open.

He couldn't see anything interesting when he first raised the lid, which was just a little disappointing. From the weight of the chest he had expected it to be stuffed with gold or something, but whatever was inside was covered with several layers of blankets.

Once he had removed the musty blankets (whatever was in the trunk, it had been there for a while) Deidara could see a sheet-covered bundle in the bottom. A disturbingly person-shaped bundle, Deidara realized as he pulled the sheet away.

"Suna's secret weapon is…a ball-jointed doll, un?"

That was certainly what the trunk's contents most resembled, Deidara decided as he reached in and pulled it out. It was approximately the size of a small child, although much heavier, and Deidara could feel how fine the joints were as they moved when he lifted it into his arms.

Deidara had seen some of the ninja puppets of Suna before, but this one was exceptionally realistic even for those. Its soft red hair looked real and fell naturally onto its child-like face, which bore a remarkably human expression. Deidara was certain that if he didn't already know it wasn't, even from a few feet away he would have mistaken it for a sleeping child.

While it looked as if the doll had been fully clothed when locked in the trunk, over the years the fabric had deteriorated and its green tunic was threadbare to the point that it tore at the slightest touch. Deidara discovered this quickly when he tried to adjust one of the sleeves only to have it crumble in his hands. The doll itself was of much more durable material, however, and had no signs of wear.

Deidara was very curious now, and wondered why this was what he had been paid to steal and why it was 'Suna's secret weapon'. While it was certainly a beautiful piece of work, he couldn't see yet what made it a weapon.

_I should probably put it back now so they don't realize I took it out,_ Deidara decided, but examined the doll a little further first. Taking one of its small hands, he curled the fingers experimentally, marveling at how perfectly the knuckles worked.

"Okay, back you go now, un," Deidara said finally, beginning to lower the doll back into the box. The fading sunlight caught its face, and Deidara decided he _had_ to know if it felt as humanlike as it looked.

Reaching out, Deidara ran his fingers across the doll's cheek.

Brown eyes looked up at him.


End file.
